Successful challenge of ParkingEye notice to hirer

moneysaver98765

Venue is Freemans Park, Leicester. The various posts on this forum were very helpful - so thank you.

My challenge:

1.     I would like to appeal this parking charge notice (“PCN”).

 

2.     I respond as the hirer of the vehicle. There will be no admissions as to who was driving the vehicle, and you are not entitled to draw any assumptions as a result of this.

 

3.     The grounds for appeal are:

 

a.     Ground 1: The driver was entitled to park at the location, as a patron of the Nando’s restaurant sited there, and entered the car registration plate at the terminal inside the restaurant; and

 

b.     Ground 2: You cannot enforce the debt against me as the hirer, as your Notice to Hirer failed to satisfy the conditions set out under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“POFA”), Schedule 4, Paragraph 14 (2) (a), i.e. you have failed to provide the required documents to the hirer (including the notice to keeper and associated hire agreement materials) within the relevant period.

 

4.     Further details in relation to each ground for appeal are set out below.

Ground 1: The driver was a legitimate user of the car park, as a patron of the Nando’s restaurant there, and entered the car registration details in the terminal provided there

1.     The driver was a customer at the Nando’s restaurant located in the car park. They entered the registration details of the vehicle into the terminal there, and were therefore entitled to park at the venue for free.

 

2.     I have attached two forms of evidence to show that the driver was a patron of the restaurant and was entitled to park for free, in the form of:

a.     An email receipt, provided by the driver, from the Leicester Freemans Park Nando’s for the order made while parking took place, and

b.     A copy of a Nando’s loyalty card account history, provided by the driver, which shows an order made by the driver at the restaurant on the relevant date.

 

3.     It can therefore clearly be evidenced that the driver was entitled to use the car park. It can only be surmised that some sort of system error, or minor keying error, must have taken place, meaning that your camera systems did not recognize that the numberplate had been entered into the terminal.

 

4.     I am informed that the driver has separately written to Nando’s, informing them of the PCN that you have issued, providing the relevant proofs set out above, and requesting that – regardless of the approach you take in respect of this appeal - they contact you to instruct you to cancel the charge. You should therefore consider whether you wish to continue to incur administrative costs in pursuing this PCN.

Ground 2: The Notice to Hirer is invalid as it fails to satisfy the conditions set out under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, Paragraph 14 (2) (a)

5.     As the hirer, I received the parking charge notice by post on November 27, 2023. The notice is a two-sided sheet of A4, containing information in relation to why the notice was issued, and how it can be satisfied or appealed. No additional materials or documents were provided with the notice. If you later seek to falsely claim otherwise I will provide a witness statement to verify this, accompanied by a statement of truth, as will those who witnessed me opening the envelope containing the PCN.

 

6.     POFA, Schedule 4, Paragraph 14 (2) (a) sets out the conditions that you must fulfil in order to recover unpaid parking charges from the hirer. The conditions are that:

 

a.     “the creditor has within the relevant period given the hirer a notice in accordance with sub-paragraph (5) (a “notice to hirer”), together with a copy of the documents mentioned in [POFA] paragraph 13(2) and the notice to keeper.” [my italics].

 

7.     The documents set out in paragraph 13 (2) are:

 

a.     “a statement signed by or on behalf of the vehicle-hire firm to the effect that at the material time the vehicle was hired to a named person under a hire agreement;

b.     a copy of the hire agreement; and

c.      a copy of a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that hire agreement.”

 

8.     Paragraph 14 (3) of POFA Schedule 4 sets out that you must provide the hirer with the notice to keeper and the above documents within a period of 21 days beginning with the day after that on which the documents were provided to you by the hire car company.

 

9.     I understand that you received the relevant information and documents from the hire company on or before November 14, 2023. Therefore, the period of 21 days beginning with the day after that on which the documents were provided to you elapsed at the latest on December 5.

 

10.  You have not provided the hirer with the notice to keeper or the relevant documents within the relevant 21-day period, either alongside your PCN or by separate delivery. You cannot therefore seek to rely on the provisions of POFA to seek to recover the PCN charge from the hirer.

 

11.   I therefore expect you to cancel this PCN and look forward to receiving confirmation from you within the timescales set out by the BPA operators code of practice.

RESPONSE

Umkomaas

Nailed them ..... and very well done for following forum advice stickies/threads and doing this without any direct input from regulars. Absolutely brilliant, and real proof that this can be done successfully if people knuckle down and utilise the vast resources of the forum.  It's all here. 

👏

moneysaver98765

I had clocked the POFA fail before happening upon this forum - but the major lesson I learnt from reading the posts here was not to make any admissions about the ID of the driver.

Coupon-mad

Nicely done.